


The Finite Forever

by J_Baillier



Series: A Change of Heart [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate universe – Different First Meeting, Angst, Don't copy to another site, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Love Declarations, M/M, Major Illness, Medical Procedures, Minor character death in a prior story, Mycroft Being a Good Brother, Organ Transplantation, Return to Me AU, Romance, Sensitive Sherlock Holmes, discussions about death, once again, sorry there's lots of angst though I tried my best to be mushy, who eats his veg to keep his John from getting worried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 00:31:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17498228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Baillier/pseuds/J_Baillier
Summary: When you can't have forever, but you just might have something even better.





	The Finite Forever

**Author's Note:**

> For me, it was love at first sight with 88thParallel's wonderful, bittersweet _[Heart's Desire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15907701)_ (which you should definitely read first). While the story stands alone perfectly, my medical mind could not help wondering what life would be like for John and Sherlock down the road, how long transplanted hearts last, what Sherlock's original diagnosis was and about other such things. That led to research, research led to fic and everything I touch turns to angst, but thankfully, 88thParallel was unperturbed by that fact and both approved of and betaed this. Thank you for letting me play with your boys.

"Health is a relative concept," his cardiologist reminds him once again. He's a nag. "You must be mindful of all respiratory infections, and your dental check-up is overdue for this year. We could easily find you an appointment with our dental clinic downstairs––"

"I see a dentist of my own choosing," he replies. They've been through this before.

"Very well. I must say I like what I'm seeing in terms of weight and muscle mass. You've been adhering to the diet instructions?"

He nods, not wanting to discuss this further. Before his own heart began to really give up the ghost in his mid-twenties, his habits had been those of a spontaneous bachelor. He ate whatever was at disposal when he remembered and could be bothered, smoked, occasionally dabbled with recreational substances in his youth. He repelled routine and all those rules fitness fanatics went for. Now, he has to be the poster boy of nutrition in order to stave off premature atherosclerosis and kidney damage. Lean meat, no smoking, avoid salt, stay hydrated, drink low-fat milk, avoid other sources of saturated fats, favour whole-grain, eat plenty of fruit and vegetables… If John wasn't in his life, he knows he'd slip into at least some old, bad habits, but he can't do it to John not to look after this heart the best he can. It's a gift he will never take for granted, even if it means feeling like he's under constant scrutiny by everyone.  

It's still exhausting. John has kittens every time Sherlock gets so much as a cold. He _knows_ it could kill him, since his immune system is weak due to the rejection meds, but still.

"Your next biopsy in scheduled in three weeks."

Sherlock blanches. He had managed to forget all about them, since it's been a year since the last one, and two years since the transplant. He and John have been together for seven months. "I was hoping I wouldn't need them anymore."

"Rejection can't be reliably monitored any other way. I'm afraid you'll likely need them for the rest of your life."

He looks away. He knows what's beating in his chest has an expiration date. Sometimes he feels like he's been given a timer instead of a new lease in life. This heart had brought him John Watson, but this heart will also take him away from John, one day. They don't talk about it—the fact that only half of transplant patients live longer than a decade. Maybe, sometimes, they should. It's not fair for John to lose another partner. It just isn't. But, Sherlock also feels like the topic is taboo—that it's bad form to take up when they should both be happy for every day that they get together.

But, with the handfuls of pills he has to take, the invasive and painful procedures he has to endure make it impossible to pretend they're just like any couple shopping for groceries, walking the streets of London, going to the cinema, working.

"Mister Holmes?"

He hums in acknowledgement.

"You know the drill. If all goes well, you can be discharged the same evening after the biopsy. Do you have someone to take you home and stay with you?"

For long, he named his brother. Now, John will come with him, though Sherlock doesn't like the idea. He hasn't asked, but he's certain John will say yes. "I have someone," he confirms. "Not my brother this time."

Doctor Peters gives him a surprised smile, perhaps having read something noteworthy in his expression. "Well, then, I suppose we should update our next-of-kin information?"

 

-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-

 

He did mean to ask John, he really, _really_ did. But, every time he tried to say what he needed, to take up the subject as nonchalantly as he could, the words stuck to the back of his mouth and the anxious adrenaline made his heart pound. With its nerves cut, his heart is dependent on stress hormones to be told when to work harder. Lately, it feels like it has sensitised itself to them.

He stays silent, pretends everything as it should be. It wouldn't be fair for John, he decides, to have to be reminded that this, the two of them, has an expiration date.

Two days before the biopsy, he caves in and calls Mycroft. He's been there all his life, all through the torture of his last three years as his first heart was having its slow twilight. Mycroft knows how to read the pauses between his words, the silence at the ends of sentences, and he knows how difficult it had been to accept love into his life in the first place.

Now, to keep it, he has to do this without John.

"Of course I will," Mycroft says. Because he's Mycroft, he doesn't ask why he's been chosen; he tends to understand more about these matters than Sherlock ever has.

 

-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-

 

On the day of the procedure, his mood is further dragged down by the fact that Lestrade texts about a case just as he arrives at the hospital. _Sounds like at least a seven._ What he wouldn't give to be examining a crime scene instead of donning the dull greige backless gowns used by the angiology laboratory, to be interrogating a suspect instead of having his bloods drawn, to wander around some part of London scouring a suitable place for lunch with John instead of answering endless, repeated inquiries about whether he has been nil-by-mouth and if he has any allergies. He knows that these questions are for his safety, but sometimes—like today—everything is a bit too much.

Half of his life until the transplant he had spent bedridden, and the thought is intolerable that he might get less time with his health reinvigorated than he spent getting exhausted just watching TV, his ankles swollen and his lungs threatening to fill with fluid, arrhythmias keeping him awake at night and the hunger for oxygen clouding his brain, robbing him of his intellect. Who would have wanted him then, when he couldn't do anything, when he was closer to a ghost than a man? Love was a thing of futile daydreams during those years, and now that he has it, he often feels as though it's slipping between his fingers like the sand of an hourglass.

A smiling nurse appears. He'd said no to a sedative; can't afford to present John with any clues that something is out of the ordinary when he gets home. His scarf and then a turtleneck should hide the small incision for the introducer sheath of the biopsy catheter—or, he could tell John that a tree branch had scraped his neck, hence the bandage. Sherlock has had this done seven times before; the first lead to his diagnosis of ARVD: Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia. Many genetic subtypes of it have been recognised and one thing is for certain: it's inherited, though not all who carry an associated gene will develop the disease. There had been two occurrences of sudden deaths in young males in the family a few generations ago, but of course the disease was not well known, then. For long, Sherlock managed with medications and a pacemaker but eventually, both his ventricles began to fail due to programmed cell death particularly in the right ventricle and fibro-fatty infiltration; the muscle cells in his heart were turning into useless fibrous and fatty tissue. Eventually, that lump of fibre could barely perform its job of pumping blood, and then nearly not at all.

James Sholto had died, in the nick of time, so that Sherlock could live. That fact is something both he and John have made their peace with, both alone and together. It's the long-term aftermath that Sherlock cannot quite negotiate.

Mycroft, who has been tested not to carry the genetic defect, must be sitting in a waiting area somewhere, presumably with a laptop in his hands. Or, perhaps he'd gone back to his car which doubles as a mobile office. Sherlock has lain on the backseat many times; it was often a sad conclusion to an attempt to be discharged.

A year and a half before the transplant he'd lived through a most hateful month of frequent pulseless ventricular tachycardias, and when his defibrillating pacemaker had struck three times in one day he begged his then-cardiologist to fry whatever part of his conduction system was causing it. Reluctantly, she put him in a catheter ablation queue, but before his time came, the disease took a leap forward and cut the proverbial wire altogether, making him completely dependent on the pacemaker even when not in the throes of a rhythm disturbance.

He should count his blessings, but the optimistic praise he gets from his cardiothoracic surgeon and his cardiologist and his immunologist and all the other people who are a part of his life (although he'd happily banish them from it if he could), serves only to irritate him. Especially today.

He closes his eyes as instructed when they begin draping his neck. The local anaesthetic stings, but pain doesn't bother him. It means he's alive.  

 

-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-

 

The four hours he's required to stay under observation drag on. He's fine, he's had this done before, his last results were fine. At one point he almost opens his mouth to declare he's going to discharge himself, but a stern glance from Mycroft who mostly hides behind his Financial Times silences his protests. He's anxious to get his phone back from the locker at the reception area; John may have been texting him.

The man doesn't disappoint. A message saying simply _'case?_ ' has arrived not long ago. He replies with matching taciturnness. Perhaps they could stop somewhere on their way back to get take-away; when he solves a case John isn't involved with, he often brings some home. He shouldn't fast during cases, but proper meals make his brain sluggish and his steps heavy. Still, he eats here and there. And sleeps, since deprivation tends to increase circulating stress hormone levels and give him a low-end tachycardia. He's grateful that John doesn't fuss over him regarding these habits; it must be because they had met when Sherlock was already well-recovered from the transplant and not much in his everyday life could have clued John in to his secret.

John has never seen him like this: a patient in the machinery of a hospital. He has come with Sherlock to some outpatient appointments, but Sherlock doesn't even tell him about all of them. John's awareness should be on a need-to-know basis.

Finally, the interventional cardiologist walks in with a tablet in hand. Sherlock nods through the discharge instructions, confirms the date and time of his next appointment with his assigned cardiologist. He'll get the results in a month. They should be fine. Everything's always been fine—considering.

But what if they're… not? One day, Doctor Peters won't be smiling. One day, he'll have to live through a repeat of the day he was told he needed to be put in the transplant queue. Only people who are dying get told that. He knows the math: only three percent of transplant procedures are reoperations, though the number is increasing. Whether he'd even be eligible for one is a whole different matter: there's age, organ availability, and the cause of the failure of the first transplant is also an issue. If his body rejects it too strongly, develops aggressive antibodies to foreign tissue, then it's unlikely his traitorous Transport would ever accept another alien organ.

"You're quiet," Mycroft comments once they're in the car and a rainy London is floating by as they make their way towards Baker Street. "Was the procedure more taxing than usual? Perhaps it was not wise to forgo sedation."

" _'More taxing than usual'_ ," Sherlock scoffs. "You make it sound like a trip to the post office."

Mycroft tucks his laptop into a custom-made receptacle in the car door. Then, he regards Sherlock with the tired but soft eyes of a brother who has suffered through much second-hand pain by a younger sibling's bed. "What do you think you're protecting John from?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sherlock dismisses, leaning his elbow on the window sill, hiding his eyes behind his palm.

"Oh, but I think you do. I meant it when I said that all I have wanted for you is happiness, and I believed you had found it, albeit in a surprising place borne out of tragedy. But, now I do wonder if you are underestimating the object of your affections."

"I don't underestimate John!" Sherlock protests.

"He survived a sudden loss of his husband—his _first_ husband, if the expression is permitted; I know your stance on marriage, but who knows…Perhaps this is another conversation for the future between you and John. So, he survived the loss of James and then, he survived the shock of discovering whose life that death had benefited. He is a physician, and clearly capable of spotting a silver lining, of adjusting his perspective to the cards that he has been dealt."

"I have no idea how you could first state the most pertinent point and then completely fail to recognise it as such. He has already been through _so much_."

"So have you." Mycroft primly crosses his fingers in a loop around the knee he's lifted atop another.

Sherlock hates the aloof correctness in his voice, his ability to be above it all when the emotions being manipulated are not his own. Yet, Mycroft had been right once. Once, his help had been crucial to getting things regarding John make sense.

"Is it not time you found consolation and support in each other, instead of wasting time hiding behind a definition of normalcy far beyond your reach?"

Sherlock decides the question is rhetorical, because really thinking about it, trying to give his brother an answer would erode his resolve to keep John blissfully ignorant. Truth be told, it is already crumbling as the car inches closer to Baker Street in the rush hour traffic.

He's been alone for so long. He had never been more alone than when he was constantly surrounded by people in hospitals.

"How are you feeling?" Mycroft asks as they pull up in front of 221.

When it's him asking, the question irritates Sherlock the least. "Same as always. It's just a nick. I barely felt it. The samples they take are minuscule."

"Of course," Mycroft confirms. "Take care," he adds as Sherlock climbs out of the back seat.

 

-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-

  
_Damned Mycroft. Bloody, stupid, nosy, annoying, poncy Mycroft._

His words have crawled into Sherlock's head and lit a kindling that is now burning behind his eyelids.

John is in the kitchen, cooking. He replies calmly and pleasantly to Sherlock's wan hello, and if there is something peculiar about his expression, Sherlock is too anxious to make note of it. He realises he'd forgot about the food, which means that he'll have to lie for at least another day about an imaginary case. He hangs up his coat, then stumbles out of his shoes and hurries into their bedroom. It's still wondrous that it's _theirs_ and not his alone.

John's shirt is hanging from the left handle of the wardrobe, and suddenly Sherlock's imagination conjures a vision of the future where John hangs another shirt there, one he'll wear to a funeral.  

He barely gets to the shower before dissolving into tears. He muffles his sobs into a washcloth as he stands under a hot shower that soon makes him light-headed. He sits down on the bottom of the tub, the water cascading down his back and plastering his curls to his forehead. He'd been advised against taking a shower or going swimming for a few days until the incision heals, but he doesn't care. He's been advised against a lot of things, and he's tired of living within a framework of rules imposed on him because of his mix-and-match body.

Two years ago, a shower would have exhausted him for the rest of the day. He should be happy. He should be grateful for what he's received, but that gift comes with the sour taste of loss, too.

Once out of the shower, he puts on a new pair of pyjamas—he had thrown out all the ones he had before the transplant, not wanting to be reminded of what it was like to live in and out of cardiology wards and A&E departments. His visage in the mirror provides some consolation: his cheeks are not hollow but healthy, he's not any paler than what his complexion dictates. He doesn't look like he belongs in a hospital.

 _It's not fair_.

He stubs his toe on a chair leg and curses. The clear, sharp pain helps push aside his worries but only momentarily, makes the slight headache from crying worse.

Soon, there are footsteps at the bedroom door. "What was that?" John asks.

Sherlock sits down on the bed, lifts his ankle onto his knee to inspect the damage. It'll be just a bruise; the skin hasn't been broken. "Hit my toe."

"Dinner's ready," John points out, and Sherlock can see him cocking his head towards the kitchen in the reflection on the mirror.

Unfortunately, this also means that John has seen his face. Without delay, he circles the bed. The concern emanating from him _hurts_.

All this work, for nothing. One moment of weakness, and Sherlock has ruined John's evening. This is exactly what he has been trying to prevent.

To his surprise, John doesn't ask him what's wrong. Instead, he sits down next to Sherlock and takes his hand. "I know where you went today."

Sherlock's eyes go wide. "I––"

"Lestrade called, says it's been slow and if I'd fancy a pint. Hadn't seen you all day."

"I was working with someone else," Sherlock tries, but John has likely already called his bluff. And, if he hadn't before, then Sherlock's hesitant tone just now would have done it.

"You could have been, yeah, but you turned off your phone's tracking, and Mycroft texted me three minutes before you walked in the door."

"Traitorous prat," Sherlock mutters, biting his lip.

"Why didn't you tell me?" John asks, lacing their fingers. "Is there… bad news?"

"No, no, it's… well, there's no news as of yet. The biopsy results take a while."

"Then why, Sherlock?"

"I _did_ want you to come," Sherlock hastily excuses. "But it's not fair to ask you, not after everything; you've done your share. With James, I mean, I––" He shouldn't have said the name. As much as they have reached a common ground when it comes to the fact that John and James could still be blissfully happily married if it weren't for a drunk driver in a Fiat Panda. "I don't want to think about it, but I have to."

"Think about what, love?"

"That one day, there _will_ be bad news. And you shouldn't have to think about it, either—even less than me." The tears begin falling again; heavy drops clinging to his lashes and trailing down his cheeks. They make his skin itch with embarrassment.

"You're an idiot," John whispers and curls his fingers around Sherlock's neck, bringing his forehead close enough for a kiss right in the middle of it.

When he lets go, Sherlock looks up, fixes his red-rimmed eyes on John. "What?"

"You're an idiot for assuming _I_ am one. Do you really think all this hasn't crossed my mind? I'm a _doctor_ , Sherlock, I know a bit about heart transplants even though it's not my specialty."

"I know you know, plenty probably." Sherlock swipes the side of his palm across his closed lids.

"I know we don't talk about this, and this proves that we should. I know the statistics but think of how it all started: _what are the odds_ is what people always, _always_ say when we tell them how we got together." John scoots closer, wraps his hands around Sherlock's shoulders. "You're my miracle, love—every day that I get to spend loving you, not just if I get forty years with you."

"You lost someone once. It's not fair for you to have to go through it again."

"You know what's even less fair? You, having heart failure before the age of thirty. James, losing his life before he got to see what he worked so hard to build. But, all those things become more of a waste if we spend the life we have mourning them. Yes, it's going to nearly kill me when your heart is no longer viable, but it won't be the same as what happened with James. Maybe you'll have a new one––"

Sherlock opens his mouth to protest, but John presses a forefinger to his lips. "Even if you don't," he says, voicing with precision what's on Sherlock's mind, "It's going to be so different, because this time I get to say goodbye. Properly. I get to be with you, work with Mycroft to make sure you get the best care anyone could ever have, right here at home." John smiles a bit, an edge of sadness there. But, it's not the resentful kind but oddly hopeful. "Did I ever tell you that Mycroft had what I'd call _'the talk_ ' with me? It was a month after we got together. Not the usual _'hurt him and I'll kill you'_ lark, but a frank discussion on whether I knew what I was in for, and if I was prepared to see it to the end. He seemed satisfied with my answers."

John's eyes are now glistening a bit, too. "How many people get to love someone like this twice in their lives, hmm? What would really make me an idiot is not realising how lucky I am. If the price to pay for that is to make every day count since we might have less of them than some other couples, then I will pay that gladly." He slides the palm that had been pressed to Sherlock's shoulder blade up to the back of his head, and gently guides the two of them to lie, face to face, on the bed.

"I don't always do so well in adhering to all the instructions. I take the meds like clockwork, but the diet and the exercise…" Sherlock trails out, muttering his words into John's chest.

"Nobody's perfect and, judging by the stories I've heard from Mycroft, you're a model citizen now, compared to a teenage Sherlock." John holds his head between his palms, withdraws a little so that he can look into Sherlock's eyes. "We were so good together, me and James, just like you and me, so there's no way you and James aren't a great match, too. It's not going to fail anytime soon," John promises.

"That's nonsense," Sherlock sniffs.

"We're all entitled to a bit of nonsense, you know. If you keep driving yourself crazy with facts and statistics, you'll forget to enjoy your life. _Our_ life. One day, it will end, but that's the thing with humans: it happens to all couples. All our organs have expiration dates, but love doesn't."

This makes Sherlock think about James, about the way John talks about him, the way he's a part of John's life still though he's not here. Sherlock has never really been jealous of that part of John's past, because it's such an intimate part of his present. He could never think ill of someone who allowed him to live.

Maybe, one day, John will think of both of them that way, and though the notion threatens to fill his eyes once more with tears of loss, he hopes that one day John's sadness will be like when he thinks about James. Gone, but so loved, still.

  
-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-

 

Five weeks later, two men sit on matching chairs in front of a desk assigned to Doctor Peters.

"No signs of deterioration or rejection. It's been two years, Sherlock, and though the danger is never over, at this stage we can all start breathing a bit easier. In a year or two, we can even see about lightening your tablet regime."

"Does that mean it should be safe to book a Caribbean cruise?" John asks with a smirkgrin.

"Absolutely," the cardiologist replies without hesitation.

Sherlock blinks. It had never occurred to him to ask such a question, to see these appointments as an opportunity to explore everything he _could_ now do, instead of just dwelling on his limitations.

That's what he should be thinking about. A holiday with John.

As they walk out of the outpatient clinic towards the main entrance, John bumps his shoulder against Sherlock's. "I love you," he says matter-of-factly.

Sherlock bites back a smile and interlaces their hands. "Perhaps we could… stop by a travel agent on the way home, then?" he suggests.

 

 

— The End —

 


End file.
